PC Drivers & Software

[GreenGoblin81]

Help Request: 6700 XT Stuttering in games

A little bit about myself, so you can know that yes, I've tried the basics, I'm an IT security specialist, I've been working in IT for a while, I'm A+, Server+, ITF+, and a bunch of other types of certified (only mentioning this so you know I'm not clueless), but this has been bothering me for over a year now. I'd love to hear what you guys might think. I've posted this in numerous places (Reddit, here, forums) and have never been able to solve this. I'm this close to abandoning AMD. This is my 3rd time posting about this on here - my other posts were largely ignored. 

The Problem:

So, I've been dealing with stuttering in games like Jedi: Fallen Order, Night of the Dead, Desolate, and all kinds of other games for over a year. I've lost count of how many times I've reinstalled windows of this, upgraded my bios, upgraded/changed parts, changed outlets, changed PSUs, changed RAM, and recently I finally changed back to Intel from AMD and I still have the problem. So about around a year ago, I upgraded from a Vega 56 to a 5700XT. I started having issues immediately. I posted on AMD and the response was generally "oh the drivers are just s*** right now, just wait", so I did. A few months later, still no fix. Since then I have tried everything imaginable to fix this - 3 different PSUs (up to 900 Watts), 3 different sets of RAM, 3 different processors, 2 different motherboards, different wall sockets, different monitors, different BIOS settings, software changes, regedits and literally anything I could find on the internet. When I started having this problem, my build was a Ryzen 7 2700X, 5700XT, and 32 GB oLOY 3600 MHz RAM w/ 750 W Thermaltake PSU and Gigabyte DS3H Mobo. I then upgraded to a Ryzen 7 3700x and Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming board w/ Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz RAM w/ 750 W Cooler Master PSU. Still Stutters. So I said f*** it. I bought an Intel i5 10600K on Prime day hoping it'd fix the problem. I installed everything, nuked every drive I have completely clean, and installed windows. Still stutters.  I even installed Windows 11 hoping it'd fix this. I even tried liquid cooling my 5700XT before I ended up upgrading it to a 6700XT. The 6700 XT performs no better than the 5700XT in my case. The only thing that made the issue better was playing on a 2070. I haven't been able to enjoy gaming since I bought the 5700 XT. It's been over a year and with the market the way it is, I'm pretty much screwed on getting a new GPU. 

Basically, I notice the issue a lot in games when there is fast movement or anything of the sort. It kind of seems like it just misses 2 or 3 frames sometimes. It kind of hangs for just a millisecond and then continues, but it does it like every 15 seconds (it's really bad in Call of Duty and Apex Legends). I guess I'm hoping one of you guys knows something I don't. Maybe you heard about something strange you have to do for the 6700XT to work right. I'll list my current configuration below and maybe you might know better than I do. This is basically just a hail mary, guys. I've pretty much given up on this but this is my last try before I just give up on AMD completely. 

Here is my current config. If you would like to know the list of parts I have tried, I can provide that, but pretty much the common factor is an AMD GPU = poor performance. 

GPU: Sapphire 6700XT (Reference Model) CPU: Intel i5 10600K (Liquid Cooled) Mobo: MSI B560M PRO ProSeries Motherboard PSU: Cooler Master MasterWatt 750 Watt Semi-fanless Modular Power Supply RAM: CORSAIR - Vengeance LPX 32GB (2PK x 16GB) 2.6 GHz DDR4 DRAM SSD (Boot): Silicon Power 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 TLC SSD Solid State Drive SSD (Storage): SanDisk SSD PLUS 1TB Internal SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s SSD (Storage): Western Digital 1TB WD Green Internal PC SSD Solid State Drive - SATA III 6 Gb/s

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ScornfulWizard]

I'd say AMD hasn't yet figured out how to make good and reliable GPUs (and drivers for them, btw). If you browse through this forum, you'll find tons of topics where people state their numerous issues with the newest GPUs from AMD. Many people just return/refund the cards and go for either a different model, or the same model but from a different manufacturer, or simply choose пVidiа's cards over AMD's.

As a bit of a stretch, I think the recent global economic instability due to the pandemic and the overflowing mining fiasco have affected the production quality worldwide, and since AMD usually cuts corners on value-over-performance line it's somewhat reasonable to assume that their recent GPUs suffer a bit in that regard. But that's just my personal opinion.

On a side note, one of the best performance, reliability and value-wise overall choices for a desktop system today is AMD CPU + пVidiа GPU. This one seems to be the ultimate combination based on many tests and user experiences.

[GreenGoblin81]

I'm starting to think you're right. For a while there, I thought Nvidia was getting too big for their britches (the RTX 2000 Series cards around 1k at release) so I really wanted to support what I thought was the much more reasonable RX 5000 series. That was the first series where the GPUs just seemed awful.  I thought maybe the 6000 series would be better so I doubled down. What a mistake that turned out to be. The 6000 series has all the problems of the 5000 series at a higher price tag. I honestly feel duped and broken-spirited with all the stuff I've tried to fix this card. I mean, I'm a pretty experienced tech and I feel hopeless with this thing. I just want to sell my whole pc and go back to Intel/Nvidia. This whole experience has left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I may never buy another AMD product. The past year has been the worst experience gaming-wise that I"ve ever had while also being the most expensive. I'm so desperate that I am willing to downgrade on my card so long as it works properly. This whole post is really my version of "say it isn't so". 

[Earnhardt]

my last build is very similar to your last one:

AMD Ryzen 2700x 8C 16T
ASUS Rog Crosshair VII Hero X470 
ASUS Rog Strix RX5700XT OC $1000
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16GB DDR4 3200MHz 
Corsair HX1200i PSU 
Corsair H100i RGB Platinum AIO 
Benq RL2755HM 27" 60HZ Monitor 

My newest build:

ASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero X570
AMD Ryzen 5800X 8C 16T CPU
ASUS Strix RX6700XT GPU
Corsair 3600Mhz 32G 16X2 DDR4
Corsair iCue H150i RGB Pro XT 360 AIO
Corsair HX1200i PSU
Samsung m.2 970 Evo m.2 2TB
Samsung m.2 970 Evo m.2 1TB
BENq Zowie XL2730 2560 X 1440 144Hz Monitor

All default settings, plays all games(the ones I play) with no issues.W10 Pro all latest updates.

The thing is, I have always used High End PSU's (Platinum) and the lowest Wattage one I have used Is the Corsair HX850i.

And to date have had little to none issues.I see a lot of people on here with issues,but a lot of suspect low quality PSU's,Not sure if that is it,but,I have seen other Reviews/forums etc mentioning poor PSU's.Just a Thought.

[Soulsa]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/mswsgm/possible_solution_to_adrenalin_2020_timeout/

Everyone blames the obvious when it could be simply Windows itself, have a read perhaps something will help.

5700xt has been an ahole of a card among most sadly though

[GreenGoblin81]

Yeah, the problem is I've reinstalled Windows several times including 2 versions. I shouldn't have to make all these changes to make a GPU work. Also, most of those fixes I have tried and nothing seems to remedy it. I've worked out a deal to trade my 6700XT for a 2080, so I'll most likely be good to go after that. I'll update you guys and let you know if that resolves the issue.

[Cegaton]

ye bro, i'm having stuttering in games too, stuttering are more noticeable in unreal engine 4 games

[hawkeye]

I remember having this problem a while ago on a 5700XT with default settings. Since then I always undervolt and set custom freq because in my system, at default settings, the 5700XT always reached power limit and was constantly downclocking causing stuttering in some games.

I now have a 6700XT and the same thing applies. Kind of...

I would start off by setting the graphics profile to standard in radeon settings. ( that means no antilag, no enhanced sync, no boost, no chill... all disabled) You can enable them later if you need them but for now just to eliminate any potential issues just disable them.

On a 6700XT go in the Radeon settings, tuning section and set the min freq to 2500Mhz and max to 2600Mhz. Set the voltage to 1100mV. ( if it starts crashing in games increase voltage by 10mv steps until its stable)

[GreenGoblin81 · Accepted solution]

I've listed my background at the bottom if you want/care to know

There are a lot of fixes I've tried that are not listed below in the interest of being brief, but believe me, I've tried almost everything I can think of in the 2 years that I've been with AMD

This is really just kind of a post detailing my experiences over the past two years where I switched from Intel/Nvidia to full AMD PC builds. AIt started innocently enough as Intel & Nvidia's prices were getting a bit steep around that time. For those of you into PC gaming, you may remember the 2000 series not being very well received at launch due to its high prices and, if memory serves me correct, the Ryzen processors were cheaper at the time as well. At the time I had an Intel i7 (can't remember the generation) and a 1070 GPU. Life was good, but then I saw the prices for the 2000 series and the overall feeling from the PC crowd I knew is that it wasn't worth it, but I still wanted to upgrade. That's when I decided to give AMD a try for the first time, so I went out to Amazon and purchased a Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 and a Ryzen 7 2700X.

The Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 / 2700X Build: (May 2019 - April 2020) This was my best experience with AMD's hardware. This computer was a solid build and had minimal issues. The Vega 56 seemed to handle my games well and left a good enough impression on me to buy another AMD card in the future. Generally, the issues I experienced here weren't major, but they were somewhat of an inconvenience. I'm a big Call of Duty player and the first issue that popped up for me was an issue with the sight having pixelation around it in Warzone/MW. I couldn't seem to fix this, but it wasn't a hardware issue, so I wasn't condemning AMD about that issue. The other issue I had occurred with every AMD card I owned - having to adjust the config.ini file for Call of Duty games to use less video memory or the games have a horrific stutter every 10 seconds or so, but applying the workaround fixed the issue. In my opinion, the Vega 56 was the last good AMD card I owned that didn't have me pulling my hair out every day.

The XFX 5700XT / 2700X - 3700X Build: (April 2020 - April 2021) When I decided to upgrade from my Vega 56 to a higher card, I bought the XFX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra. I immediately started having horrendous stuttering issues in any somewhat heavy game. I thought maybe it was my windows install, so I reinstalled - same issue. Then I thought, maybe it's my CPU, so I upgraded to the 3700X - same issue. I opened tickets with AMD, made forum posts on Reddit, and even ended up RMA'ing the card which still didn't resolve the issue. I was stumped. Then I thought, maybe it's another component in my PC, so I started replacing things like a madman. I tried 3 PSUs, 3 or 4 different SSDs, 3 motherboards, 3 different sets of RAM. I had no idea what it could be. I was so broken-spirited. I posted on AMD's forums to little response. I posted on Reddit and pretty much got entry-level (did you reboot/reinstall windows) level support. I understand that they were trying to help, but the problem is I had made it clear that I had done that many times. I was hoping maybe there was something special I had to - a magic bullet. Still not convinced that AMD's cards were the issue, I once again decided to upgrade.

The Sapphire 6700XT Reference / 3700X Build: (April 2021 - June 2021) I was able to snag a brand new 6700XT by selling my 5700XT and paying the scalper prices (yeah, I know, shouldn't pay the scalper, but I was desperate). I was so excited to finally get to enjoy gaming again after a year of stuttery/unbearable games. With much joy, I installed the 6700XT, but still, the stuttering remained. I again reinstalled windows and still had the same issue. I installed Windows on different SSDs, plugged the computer into different outlets, tried every wacky fix on the internet, updated BIOS, and everything I could think of. Again, I posted on the AMD forums and received no response. I proceeded to post on Reddit for help and again received no substantial advice. I was so sure that if there were a big issue with AMD's cards, somebody would have said something by now - it would've been widely known. I started looking into potential major issues with other components and I read about some issues with bad performance out of the 3700X memory controller. The logic that it was simply an AMD card issue just didn't check out for me, so due to that, I sold my 3700X & AM4 motherboard and bought an i5 10600K and MSI 560M motherboard on Prime day thinking it was potentially a CPU issue.

The Sapphire 6700XT Reference / i5 10600K Build: (April 2021 - June 2021) Thinking that I might have potentially found a fix to my issue, I installed the new motherboard and processor, but the issue continued. I tried reinstalling windows due to the new CPU, but the stutter would not cease. I began to try seances and witchcraft at this point and a medium told me to install Windows 11. Just kidding, but seriously I installed Windows 11 with the idea in mind that maybe a different OS would help - it didn't. I again posted on AMD's forums asking for help and received no response. I even opened a ticket with AMD and they didn't get with me in time before I finally made myself rid of the 6700XT. My gaming for the past 2 years had been absolute **bleep**. Gaming is my hobby and I was so broken-spirited and I thought I was never going to fix the issue - I didn't even want to try anymore. Then, finally, I decided to return to Nvidia.

The EVGA RTX 2080 / i5 10600K Build: (June 2021 - current) After finally having exhausted all possible fixes I could try, replacing parts, RMA-ing cards, and opening support tickets, I finally gave up on the AMD card lineup. I made a deal on an RTX 2080 and I reinstalled Windows on my PC for the last time. I reset all my settings on my BIOS and on my monitors to make sure nothing was changed from all my previous troubleshooting. I installed GeForce experience and booted up Call of Duty which was my most notorious stutter-er that never failed to show up on my AMD cards. I waited for my shaders to install and I scrutinized every frame. I played for 2 hours and it was pure bliss. I haven't had such a buttery smooth experience in 2 years. I was genuinely happy - euphoric even. I had finally found the culprit of the stuttering - AMD's GPUs. It was so smooth that I almost had forgotten how smooth PC gaming had been before the RDNA series of AMD. I was so happy that I rushed downstairs and told my wife that it worked and how happy I was. Since I swapped in the Nvidia card, I haven't seen a stutter. I'm still super paranoid about it as I have a sort of PTSD from all the poor performance. At this point, I couldn't be happier with the performance of my PC.

Conclusion: I know that many people use AMD's GPUs and have no issues, but it ruined 2 years of gaming for me. I spent so many hours researching and trying to figure out what the issue is. Nothing fixed it until my computer was 100% free of AMD hardware. At this point, I don't think I'll ever purchase another AMD product. I don't think I could if I wanted to as my opinion of AMD has changed drastically over the last 2 years. If you're an AMD fan, I am not trying to be flagrant towards AMD, but this is my genuine experience with AMD builds. I'm really posting this in the hope that if anyone else should experience the issue, maybe this will help. Thanks, guys!

Credits: (All the different Hardware I tested trying to resolve this issue) -Ryzen 7 2700X -Ryzen 7 3700X -Ryzen 3 2200G (Briefly Tested) -Ryzen 5 3500 (Briefly Tested) -Intel i5 10600K -Radeon 5700 XT -Radeon 6700 XT -EVGA RTX 2080 (Fixed the issue) -ID-COOLING ICEFLOW 240 VGA Graphic Card Cooler 240mm -Gigabyte B450M DS3H Motherboard -Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming Motherboard -AMD Wraith Prism Stock Cooler -Corsair Hydro H60 Liquid Cooler -Apevia 900W 80+ Bronze Certified PSU -ThermalTake Smart 700W 80+ White Certified PSU -Silicon Power 512GB NVMe Gen3 M.2 SSD -Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA M.2 -NVMe M.2 Aluminum Heatsink Cooler for 2280 M2 SSD Heat Sink with Silicone Thermal -OLOy DDR4 Warhawk RAM (32 GB 8x4) 3600 MHz RAM -LEVEN DDR4 8GB KIT (4GB×2) 2666MHz PC4-21300 CL19 -VENGEANCE® LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit - Black -Kingston Memory KVR26N19S8/8 ValueRAM DDR4 8 GB DIMM -Pastall 100 PCS (8 Different Sizes) Heatsink Kit (VRM Passive Cooling) -CUK 7-Pack 120mm Red LED Vibrant Color Computer Case Fan -WJCOOLMAN CPU Cooler of 240 Radiator, CPU Liquid Cooler with Booster Cooling Pump -StarTech.com Expansion Slot Rear Exhaust Cooling Fan -3 different brands of thermal paste -probably a lot more stuff that I forgot about

My background: Just to give you an idea of my background to give the story above, I'm going to give a brief intro on my experience/history. I went to college for Information Technology and I've been working professionally in IT for around 10 years now in roles ranging from Help Desk technician to Systems Administrator and Security Specialist. I'm only listing this so you guys can know that I at least have relevant experience/knowledge and I can see how this article might be challenged, but it's my own experience/opinion.

My Certifications: CompTIA: -IT Fundamentals+ -A+ -Server+ -Cloud Essentials Electronics Technicians Association: -Computer Service Technician (CST) -Network Computer Technician (NST) Linux Professional Institute: -Linux Essentials Misc: -Watchguard Policies Certified -Unitrends Certified Associate -and a few others that aren't really relevant

[hawkeye]

Sorry for your bad experience.

I understand that you are already on a 2080 gpu so you can't even test what I said earlier...and you didn't reply to anyone here giving advice, you just randomly decided to get a 2080 and...whatever glad that it solved all your problems.
Someone would think that with your level of experience you wouldn't start changing ALL the components in your PC except the GPU, witch was the main candidate for your problems and maybe your monitor ( possibly compatibility issue with AMD gpu, older gsync monitor by any chance ? )

Have a nice day,
Cheers

[GreenGoblin81]

Sorry that I did not respond, but yes, I did try what you suggested a while ago. I should've responded back, but I read it and I knew that I had already done it, so I just kind of ignored it - my bad. And if you read what I said, I RMA'd the GPU (5700XT) and then upgraded to 6700XT, any tech would think that it's not likely out of 3 GPUs all three would have problems, so I don't think it was irrational for me to start replacing parts to investigate other issues. Keep in mind, this all happened over a period of like 2 years, so it's not like I did this all in one day - I slowly replaced parts to figure out the issue. Also, no both of my monitors are actually < 2 years old and equipped with Freesync, so that really shouldn't be the problem. Like I said, this isn't to be flagrant towards AMD, I'm just being honest about what fixed my issues. The fact that I had similar problems on 3 AMD GPUs made me think it could be something else in my pc - over a period of 2 years and some change. 

[hawkeye]

Yeah.... Sometimes there are specific issues with some combinations of parts that just don't work well together. In your case I think there was a combination of motherboard, bios version, gpu and who knows what else. I had my fair share of problems with a 5700XT back in 2019, and coming from an nvidia GPU that worked flawlessly it was very annoying. But in my case it was all driver issues that got fixed eventually.
Clearly not all 3 GPUs were faulty, in fact I think none of them were faulty, just some combination of parts and/or BIOS versions that caused some compatibility problems IMHO. These things should not exist and AMD needs to improve in this department.
Anyway glad that you fixed it and you can play without issues again.

Cheers.

[GreenGoblin81]

Yeah I agree that it's most likely a compatibility issue somewhere and that no card was actually defective, but that's what made it so hard to pin down - that's what I suspected and the reason for my changing out so many parts. Nvidia's compatibility is likely just in a better place and that's what resolved the issue. Either way, like I said, this post isn't meant to diss on AMD. Just sharing an experience and bringing some closure to my open tickets (I had 3 on here that I just copy/pasted this in as the solution). 

[RRaymon]

It really should have be a compatibility issue or . . . YOU HAD FAST STARTUP ENABLED, yup, I'm coming from a 2080 SUPER(And the FPS difference between these 2 is more than 10 frames in the games I play daily and the same settings lol), first days I experienced a **bleep**ton of sttuters and I was regretting what I did, but then I inspected further and it actually was that stupid option in Windows called "Fast Startup" that didn't allow my 6700 XT to actually maintain a good clock/power during games.

[Tomerraif]

Fast startup is not the problem he have to switch to nvidia.

i have 6800XT with stutters in warzone in every game, tried every solution that posted in google but when i switched my GPU to 3080 of my friend the game run smooth.

now I'm stuck with my trash 6800XT!!

[rainingtacco]

Well you are a knowledgeable and smart person. Not every one is like you, and those dumb people buy AMD, not noticing these problems or not playing these games. The moral of the story is, if you want quality or modicum of joy, don't buy AMD GPUs. They are mostly garbage.

You might search my profile posts for more information, and why this might be happening. AMD hire only small amount of genuinely smart people, so ever since the huge change from GCN to RDNA happened, they have no idea and i repeat this, no idea how to clean this mess and make their GPUs shine[unless it's tied to GPU internal scheduling, then no drivers will help]. 

It's a shame that these few-dozen percent of people on the GPU market who buy AMD gpus while being on windows, don't see these problems or don't notice.

[waltc3]

I have to say that this is the first time I've ever seen someone list getting rid of his equipment as the "solution" to solving his problem...;)  I've had many AMD/ATi GPUs over the years, starting with the R300 in 2002 and they've all been really nice GPUs.  I've had my AMD 50th Ann Ed 5700 XT for a few months shy of three years, and it's been a very nice GPU--no stuttering, etc.  I wish people would do a bit of thinking before writing this kind of post, because logic dictates that if the solution to problems with AMD GPUs is selling your AMD GPU hardware, then I think that today AMD wouldn't be selling any GPUs as no one would be buying them...;)  Ergo, the problem is something that escaped the OP and drew him to the conclusion that AMD GPUs are just generically poor products, which is unfortunate, I think, for him.  Had he been able to actually solve his problem it might have been educational and instructive, but concluding that AMD just makes cruddy GPUs is certainly not a fact that I am familiar with...;)